Fall has come and touched my heart as I have watched the leaves change color and the temperature drop. I love this time of year. Here in Utah it signals a long break from the 100 degree heat. When I open up the door in the morning to let the dog out, I feel the chill of the morning and it revives me. During the summer, it is too hot to do much work out in the yard. I'm not motivated enough to get out early in the morning and do yard work during the summer. But when fall arrives I love getting outside and being able to work hard and not feel overheated. This last month, I focused on spreading mulch/ground cover around our mini orchard and evening out the soil under the trees. When Ryan had dug holes for the trees, he left piles of dirt in several places. I've been using my yard work as a way to exercise so I began transfering the piles of dirt to a hole that we had in the yard from another project. What a great workout for a few days. I told Ryan at the beginning of summer that I wanted to be in charge of mowing the lawn so that I could exercise. He gratefully let me take on this responsibility. I tried to do this while Dallin was sleeping and I had the baby monitor with me. My only problem is that I hate picking up after the dog before I mow. The "dog duty" has always been my chore since the dog is mine. Since I hate doing this, I would wait to mow the lawn until it really needed it. So much for regular exercise! Dallin loves going for rides in his stroller and so sometimes in the evening during summer, I would go for a walk with him. One time we were walking and Tyler and Sydney were riding their bikes with us. We passed a family that we knew from Church and they told us they were going to another friends house to milk their goats and round up the chickens for the night. Not wanting to miss an oportunity to teach my kids how to milk, we tagged along. Our town is mostly urban but still has a few small backyard farms spread out. Many of the older homes that have yards over an acre house a horse or two and sometimes goats or chickens. We live in a new subdivision that is near an older neighborhood. Being "city folk", but having a big heart for animals, I was excited to help out with the animals. I was able to teach my kids about how much work still needed to be done on even a small farm on a Sunday (It was Sunday). There were many chickens that needed rounding up and three or four goats that needed milking as well as a horse that needed petting:) The family has ten kids and they drink the goat milk since some of the kids have cows milk allergies. We helped until the sun went down and the mosquitoes had a feast. What a fun evening!! I wish I had brought the camera, but I can go and take pictures anytime since they are our friends. I hope to start posting pictures soon.